For the third year in a row, the .nl domain is one of the world’s securest top-level domains.
That is the conclusion of an annual survey by US security software company McAfee. The Dutch domain is 21st on the list of 104 TLDs, where the last TLD, .gov , is the most secure and the first, .cm is the least secure.
Phishing and malware
McAfee has revised its assessment method for this year, making the results hard to compare with those from previous years. Last year, the Netherlands was 19th on a list of 74 TLDs. McAfee’s rankings indicate how likely it is that an internet user will encounter threats such as phishing and malware when visiting websites within the surveyed domains. Phishing is a form of fraud that involves luring people to a fake website, made to look like the site of a trusted organisation such as a bank. On the fake site, the unsuspecting visitor attempts to log in, thus ‘giving’ the fraudsters his/her user name and password or credit card number. The fraudsters are then able to access the victim’s bank account or use his/her card. Malware is a general term applied to malicious and/or harmful software, such as computer viruses and worms. McAfee checked out more than 540,000 .nl websites to arrive at the rating.
Risks
McAfee concluded that there are threats everywhere on the internet and that the problems are getting worse. However, suspect sites are not evenly distributed across the various TLDs. It is not realistic to expect that all threats can ever be eliminated, because cyber criminals are clever and resourceful. However, internet security has been improved dramatically by the combined efforts of registries, registrars and consumers.
For more information check out www.sidn.nl
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